One of the most controversial initiatives of John Lindsay’s administration was his plan to put low-income housing in middle-income neighborhoods.
The flashpoint was the proposed Forest Hills houses – which today is considered one of the best and safest public-housing projects in the city.
The proposal to build the so-called “scatter site” project in the white middle-class, predominantly Jewish Queens neighborhood led to angry demonstrations on both sides.
Supporters charged opponents with racism, while the area residents who fought the development said it would flood the neighborhood with troubled families and depress property values.
After a series of raucous public meetings and angry protests in the early 1970s, Lindsay asked a young lawyer named Mario Cuomo to step in.
Cuomo negotiated a compromise with opponents of the plan that helped launch his own political career.
“People were upset on both sides,” the former governor recalled yesterday. “In the end, I think he [Lindsay] did it in desperation.”
Cuomo’s plan cut the housing project in half, turned it into cooperative apartments, and gave preference to the elderly and people already living in the community.
Today, its 928 residents see it as a blessing.
“It’s the jewel of public housing,” said Joseph Hennessy, one of its original tenants.
Hennessy said the low rents enabled him to send his kids to college. He said racial tensions eventually subsided “once the buildings went up.”
Ten years ago, Lindsay visited the housing development and was presented with a plaque.
“He was recovering from a stroke and it really gave him a shot of energy,” Hennessy said. “He was extremely happy.”
Even Lindsay’s fiercest opponent, Jerry Birbach, then president of the Forest Hills Residents Association, said the project became a success.
“There were a lot of eyes on it,” said Birbach, who moved out of the area. “That project got a lot of services that others never got.
“Mayor Lindsay had a lot of charisma. It was very hard not to like the guy. He could probably charm a snake, but he couldn’t charm me.”
Today, more than 50 percent of the project’s residents are senior citizens with an ethnic mix of Russian, Asian, Hispanic and black.
“This place is the best thing that every happened to me,” said 87-year-old Dorothy Jerusalmi. “Mayor Lindsay had a good idea. We have clean, safe hallways and our tenants care.”